(Finally finished revising the old draft and caught up to where I left off. Everything from here on is newly written.)
"Great! Let's get out of here!"
At the sight of the spacious ventilation duct, Rake was overjoyed. He hurriedly stepped aside to let the men he had hastily gathered go in first.
"Thanks, boss!"
Several of his underlings jumped up gratefully and scrambled into the vent first.
None of them noticed Rake's dark expression.
Sending a few people ahead to scout was just common sense. No matter how safe it seemed, he couldn't be the one leading the way.
Once he figured five or six people had entered the duct, Rake exchanged a glance with Song Zhong. Then they prepared to climb into the vent, one after the other.
We'll be out of here soon!
Once we're out, we'll find somewhere to hide and get back to the underworld. Now that's living!
The underlings crawling at the front of the ventilation duct savored those thoughts as they crawled forward on their hands and knees, brimming with hope for the future.
Another hundred meters or so, then a turn, and they should be near the exit. There ought to be a central air-conditioning room over there.
Just then, they reached a corner.
It was an utterly ordinary corner. None of them paid it any mind as they rounded it at the same pace.
Then the men in front froze.
Past the turn, they saw the originally square ventilation duct abruptly narrow into a thin rectangle-a gap absolutely no one could squeeze through.
They were trapped inside just like that.
This... this had to be deliberate!
*Who put ventilation ducts somewhere easy to climb into, deliberately made them square and spacious enough to crawl through, then suddenly narrowed them to block